#122---Australia v. Mexico, 3/8/2009 (World Baseball Classic)

This was the opening game of the WBC for each country, with the game being played in Mexico City. The result was fairly surprising, as Australia is on the lower end of the WBC spectrum (albeit boasting a handful of current/future major leaguers including Trent Oetljen, Chris Snelling, Damian Moss, Liam Hendriks, Justin Huber on their roster) while Mexico has more talent by any measure (the Hairston and Gonzalez brothers make up 4/9 of the starting lineup).

But they also had their ace, Oliver Perez on the mound, and to the surprise and dismay of Mets fans everywhere, that didn’t go so well. Perez surrendered back-to-back homers in the first, gave up another run in the second leaving the bases loaded, and walk and hit the first two batters in the third before being reliever. But Mexico countered with a five-run first capped by Jorge Vazquez grand slam.

Mexico led 6-4 heading to the fifth and then the wheels fell off as Australia scored 3, 3, 4, and 3 in the remaining innings before it ended on the mercy rule, touching up a handful of major league hurlers in the process and getting a second homer from Chris Snelling.

A note on the scoresheet: this is my “mini” scoresheet, which actually provides space to score two games laid out landscape style on a single 8.5x11 sheet of paper. I cut this image down to just show the one game, but it is a sheet I use sometimes when I don’t want to record pitch-by-pitch detail and thus can make due with small scoreboxes.

#121---China v. Korea, 3/8/2009 (World Baseball Classic)

The previous scoresheet showed Taiwan’s opening game loss to Korea in the 2009 WBC, but they followed that up with an 4-1 upset loss to China that knocked them out of the tournament. Korea fell 14-2 to Japan, setting up this game that would advance the winner to the second round of the WBC. As expected, Korea won, and did so in mercy rule fashion. The mercy rule and the extra inning rule are elements of international play that you don’t usually see in a scoresheet--I don’t yet have an example of the latter, but have several of the former. China never threatened with only two baserunners over seven frames on a single and a double.

#120---Taiwan v. Korea, 3/6/2009 (World Baseball Classic)

Korea had no trouble with Taiwan in the WBC opener, rolling them 9-0. Note the solid but very brief start from Hyun-jin Ryu, 3 1/3 innings, one hit, two walks, three Ks, 43 pitches and done. A grand slam to cap a six-run first had already taken most of the drama out of the Tokyo Dome.

#119---China v. Japan, 3/5/2009 (World Baseball Classic)

This opening round WBC game saw China play credibly against Japan. The Chinese didn’t manage much in the way of offense, with just five hits (all singles) and a walk, failing to advance a runner to second in the entire game. But they managed to hold Japan down better than they did in 2006 when they were trounced 18-2. This included holding Ichiro 0-5.


Of course there are a number of recognizable names on the Japanese side, but the most interesting is Masahiro Tanaka working in middle relief in the seventh, coming in with two outs and no one on, surrendering a single and then getting a fielder’s choice to get out of it. At this point, Tanaka was just twenty with two fairly average seasons under his belt (albeit as a teenager); he would take a big step forward in this coming season, going 15-6 with a 2.33 ERA, before going beast mode on the Pacific League 2011-2013 (ERA under 2.00 all three seasons with a 43-9 record).